Apropos of nothing even remotely relevant to Bill's book, Gus Grissom's son Scott was one of my flight instructors. When I met him for the first time, I asked if he was related to the Mercury astronaut, and he said he was his son. I was appropriately impressed and asked what his dad was doing now? Um, he died in the Apollo 1 fire. I was never so embarrassed in my entire life.

In the course of our work together, he taught me something he said Neil Armstrong had taught him. If you have an engine failure and are forced to land on a road, but you're uncertain whether you can fly over or will have to land under an overpass, head directly for the overpass and watch your airspeed gauge. If your airspeed is high enough, go over the overpass; if it isn't, land under it. Pretty cool. Fortunately, I've never had to use the advice.

I stayed in touch with Scott after I finished my license. He got accepted for training as a United Airlines First Officer and went to Denver to attend their flight academy. After he graduated, he moved back to his Houston apartment. United sent him a telegram telling him where and when to show up for his first work assignment, but they sent it to his Denver address and he never got it. They summarily fired him for failing to show up for his first flight. He became a FedEx pilot and, last I heard, was happy there.

_________________“Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet.” –Abraham Lincoln

In the Photo section, I'm pretty sure that is a mule deer being drug by Lurton Blassingame, not an elk.

In the Notes section, Page 587, section 22 note 2 reads "The cuts were not allowed in the dunder-free quest house." I'm pretty sure that this should read, " The cats were not allowed in the dander-free guest house. "

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